This invention pertains to the art of remote lighting apparatus and more particularly to apparatus for receiving visible light from a single source, and distributing the received light to one or more remote locations. The invention is specifically applicable to automatic overhead street lighting systems used by municipalities and also residential consumer products including ornamental and safety lighting systems, and will be described with particular reference thereto. In alternate embodiments, the invention may be utilized for commercial or recreational vehicle use, including airplanes, boats, and tractor-trailers, as well as in domestic household indoor/outdoor lighting systems. It will be appreciated, though, that the invention has broader applications such as automatic safety strip lighting applications and other distributed safety or security lighting applications.
The current overhead lighting apparatus utilized for most street lighting situations employ an electric lamp mounted within a housing having a reflector and a lens. The housing is primarily supported by a substantially vertical pole generally constructed of wood or of aluminum with a hollowed center. The lamp housing is then generally separated from the vertical pole by a lighter gage horizontal member which effectively distances the support pole from the road surface to ultimately be illuminated.
Power is typically supplied to the bulb within the housing by electrical wires which run along the interior of the hollowed vertical support and continue toward the housing through the horizontal support member. Of course, wiring is strung pole-to-pole when the vertical supports are of the wooden variety. Typically, a maintenance panel is provided somewhere near the ground level for easy access to the power supply conductors through a portion of the pole when hollow. Maintenance for the overhead bulb requires special equipment regardless of pole type due to the placement of the lamp.
The proliferation of overhead electric lighting in the form of street lamps has created a need for expensive specialized equipment and trained personnel to maintain those systems in operational form. In particular, specialized vehicles are commonly used having a bucket attached to a ruggedized telescopic or articulated control arm. Both the bucket and arm are of the quality and nature necessary to support at least one maintenance person, along with maintenance tools, while the street lamps are being serviced. Since the most frequent failure of the present overhead street lighting systems is due to bulb failure, the services of the above-described maintenance vehicles and specially trained maintenance personnel is essential to the well-being of those systems, as repairs must be made substantially elevated from ground level. In addition, for safety reasons, it is most often the case that two maintenance personnel are employed wherein one man rides in the bucket to replace a spent bulb while the second maintenance person remains on the ground should an emergency arise. These factors contribute to an overall high cost of operation for those systems.
Another situation in which relatively inaccessible incandescent or other bulbs require frequent attention is in overland vehicles, specifically tractor-trailers. Not only the placement of the marker lights, but the number of lights typically found on such vehicles pose a serious continuing maintenance problem. Indeed, most states require a minimum number of illuminated marker lights when travelling during the hours between dusk and dawn. As such, operators typically spend a great deal of time climbing stepladders or the like in order to replace expired marker bulbs for both safety and compliance reasons. This "down time" directly translates into lost profits as idle time impacts the efficiency of the cartage operation. Failure to maintain the many marker lights could result in safety hazards. Other types of vehicles such as boats and planes, similarly suffer this infirmary.